Sunday 5/9

Where I ate breakfast, the couch in the living room looking out over Hyde Park

Scott set the table.  Doesn't he look proud?

Candid photo of the group socializing before we ate

Here we are...Logan came a little late so he missed the photo. :(

We went to church here today!!! 

Today I made myself a most glorious breakfast.  I made eggs and toast and ate wheatabix and had a banana and tea.  It was wonderful to just sit down to a lovely breakfast and look out of my flat over Hyde park.  Scott and I headed for the tube with two other girls from our program.  When we were on the tube, Christiana was carrying her scriptures and this gentleman struck a conversation with us about scriptures in general.  He pointed out that her scriptures were larger than most.  I said, quite openly, "well, we're Mormon so we have a few extra books".  I don't suppose that would be the most missionary like way to put it but, that is the way that felt right.  He started bringing up all the typical talking points, making reference to the book of revelations and asking how it is we had other books.  Good thing we had Scott there who has answered these questions before.  I felt confident in bearing testimony but this man sighted a scripture in Revelations that is actually in John.  It kinda threw me but Scott knew exactly what he was talking about.  As we left the tube, the conversation ended in a friendly way.  No heated debates had started.  No Bible bashing began.  We were simply sharing and that felt SO right.

Our first stop was the sung Eucharist at Wesminster Abbey.  This was a musical treat.  It was fun to experience the Abbey all over again with the students who had never been there.  It was also a joy to be there on the Sabbath.  I felt more spiritually and intellectually prepared for the experience.  As we approached the gates, there were stewards/ guards saying that the Abbey was closed for tours and open only for worship.  We just pressed through the crowd and I said "we're here to worship".  Tahdah, they let us in of course.  

We had wonderful seats just to the left of the choir.   These seats made me feel as if I was really a part of the service more than a tourist popping in for a listen like we did last week.  The abbey seemed to literally take the student's breath away.  I could hear gasps behind me as we took our seats.  This was my first sung eucharist and I didn't know quite what to expect.  The all male choir sang a Ralph Vaughn Williams Mass and I was particularly delighted to hear the same arrangement of "I Sat Down Under His Shadow" that the BYU Singers and Concert Choir performed last year.  It was such a delight to understand and connect with this piece because I had already thought about it and developed a "testimony" of the message, if you will.  I was really impressed with the stamina of these young soprano boys.  They have such control over their sweet and clear voices; it's really incredible.  The men singing the tenor and bass lines were enough of a support to the boys but not too overpowering.  In my opinion there was a great balance and intonation in the choir.  The only thing I felt that their performance lacked was technical accuracy.  What I mean by that is there were times where accents, dynamics, and rhythms weren't together.  Good thing the ceilings are so glorious and thus the acoustics make up for whatever is lacking.  I really enjoyed the way in which they took the sacrament during this service.  The choir sang, I think it was a sanctus, as each row of the congregation went to receive the bread and wine.  It was such a powerful way to experience the sacrament.

Our next stop was the Hyde Park singles ward.  We stayed for the whole three hour block not realizing that the evensong we wanted to attend actually started at 3 PM not 5.  This is what happens when people mistake military time for 12 hour time.  15:00 hours is 3 PM.  I'll never forget that one.  The singles ward was great though.  I don't even really remember what the first speaker said except she made this analogy about the storms of life and the need to be prepared with a life jacket.  I thought that was pretty applicable.  In a storm in the open ocean, if everyone goes overboard you can't just give someone your life jacket without sacrificing your own life.  The same goes with testimony.  You can't rely on the testimony of others, you need to get your own.  Granted, there is always a way back to safety where you can build that testimony which is not necessarily the case in the open seas.  There was a man who gave a wonderful talk about forgiveness which really tied into the second talk about repentance.  We loved that meeting.

So our plans for evensong fell through but a former member of Concert Choir and dear friend, Jeff Lark, invited a group of us for dinner at his flat.  Steve, Emily, Heather, Emilie, Johnathan, Logan, and Scott and I got together and just laughed and laughed all night. We followed Jeff through the tube stations and on the walk to his place.  We arrived at what didn't look like much and Jeff told us to ignore the outside because it was pretty nice on the inside.  As we walked up the stairwell he proceeded to tell us about the homeless woman who lived there.  She was apparently even urinating in that stairwell.  Could this all be a bunch of folklore?  Possibly.  It did smell funny.  Anyway, we get up the stairs to Jeff's lovely, refurbished, contemporary, clean, bachelor pad.  I was surprised to see that he doesn't have a tv!  Why you might ask?  Because it costs somewhere around 150 pounds a year to own a tv.  You are required to pay this licensing fee.  What the silly?  Anyway, Jeff has done well for himself!  The food was delicious and conversation was flying all night.  We told stories, caught up with one another, and I just laughed until my abdomen hurt.  One of my favorite parts of the evening was when Steve and Jeff decided to read from a book by their favorite author whose name I cannot remember.  Steve is the perfect man to read a story aloud!  He is expressive and quick witted so, he was kind of a one man show for that portion of the night.  It felt a little old fashioned....everyone sitting around the living room listening to stories.  I've been wanting to attend this story telling festival in Utah for the last couple of years...story telling and story reading are really art forms.  

Eventually we had to turn in for the night.  Jeff's girlfriend told me as I left that she felt like she knew me from somewhere else.  I have no idea where that could have been.  Perhaps I just have one of those faces.  Logan was moving out of Jeff's place because he stayed there before the study abroad actually began and he left some things there.  I helped him pack things up a bit and we were off!  As I was heading back down that dirty stairwell, Logan urged me to make haste because he was carrying heavy bags.  I tried to hurry but slipped and fell on my bottom.  haha.  That was the perfect way to end the day.  :)